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Thursday, October 18, 2012

A week in the life of me

To say I am tired is an understatement. In fact, I'm so mind wiped right now it's schway man.
So what did my past two weeks consist of? Well, since I can't access my 1TB hard drive for now, I wanted to keep my mind busy. Anime, well, this new season is starting pretty slow, but there are some good apples here and there. But it's not helping, and when I think about the other Summer shows I kept on my 1TB and have yet to watch, kinda puts a damper on things.
I figured if I have to sell my phone some day, why not do something with it first before I have any more regrets.

I unfortunately wasn't able to save much this month because I had to help the owner of my current laptop due to my "overextended" loan of it, so in I dove into Linux and the wonderful world of Android developing.
I wish it was wonderful, Linux (Ubuntu) as an OS is an atrocious thing to use, meine gott how horrified I was when it comes to simple things such as the file explorer, I laugh in mockery at those articles online about "5 reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows" and they don't mention a thing about the usability of the OS, I say screw it. See, I have a problem with resizing program windows (specifically file explorer). You know how to resize a window? You have to put your mouse cursor at the very edge of a window, and.... hope it will click and drag to your desired size. And I say hope, because the damn thing doesn't work 80% of the time. When I mouse over the edge, the mouse turns into that resize icon, now, with no mouse movement whatsoever, I click and the thing returns to a mouse cursor. Don't tell me jack about my mouse, it's a trackball, and I've even tried setting the mouse over the edge, take my hand off the mouse, and, while the cursor is still in resize-mode, I click on my mouse buttons on the laptop (separate buttons, non-clickpad trite), and it still doesn't resize. Where's the damn corner that is dedicated to re-sizing? Windows 1, Ubuntu -100.

That was just a tiny bit of my distaste for Ubuntu. Sure, people can tell me oh get a new program to do what you want, I say fuck it, Windows does such simpler things out of the box. You know what else pissed me off? In order to Android develop, I need to download required packages, right? That's not all, in order to actually get those required packages, you have to update the entire damn OS in order to proceed. I didn't do that, that's why the Java SDK couldn't install, and bloody hell, how the heck was I supposed to know? No tutorial even mentioned that, and for new folks to jump into the developer game, such an important detail was left out? I had to redo an entire Ubuntu install just to get it right.

Don't tell me "everyone is supposed to update". No, not everyone is supposed to spend more than 600MB of their internet bandwidth just to update files you will never use when Android developing, and since no one said which updates were necessary, how was I supposed to know what updates to choose just to save bandwidth? You know what I hate most of all about a tutorial? When it includes words like "I assume you know what you're using" OH FOR FUNKTASTIC'S SAKE if you're going to assume, why make the damn tutorial in the first place? Why not just assume I'll know what the tutorial is going to say so that you don't have to spend your "precious" time typing out what you should have said. You know who you are.

After 1 agonizing week, I finally made progress. Guess what? I actually developed a working kernel from the get-go, the previous developer didn't mention some crucial details that was prohibiting my kernel from booting. Now things are going smoothly, except for the Ubuntu part. All I ever care about is terminal, and it is the most texty thing I see in Linux. Hell, Linux should have been just the terminal itself. But this isn't the first time I used Linux, I actually booted it off my Palm TX about 4 years ago, and that was the most lamest experience I ever had with a new OS (My first taste of MAC OS 9 (The colorful iMacs) was a nice, dare I say somewhat better experience than Windows 98).

My issue with re-sizing aside, the more I used Linux, the more it wasn't my hatred of the OS, but rather the lack of documentation regarding Android developing where they should be, especially for new users. When you come to a place to develop for Android, you should not have to search online for another forum or site when what you're looking for should be where you currently are, especially when it is "arguably" the greatest compilation of developers on this planet. Seriously though, Ubuntu is free... but having used it, I honestly don't like it. Forget that my Android debut was hampered by my first ringing headache since summer, but even till now, that's my opinion.

And that's how I spent my week. Rather than lamenting the sad state of my hdd, I figured why not try something. Do something, perhaps help others down the road. And that's what surprises me, the "titles" I've earned myself throughout the years. In 2004 I was a beta tester, helping a game company and guiding E3 attendees in my first dive into the E3 events. In 2006, in my most painful moments of my health, I sought to keep myself alive by translating the anime that I love, with the intention to help fans see what they were missing due to the lack of a translator. In 2008 I had a great idea for a FAQ over at GameFaqs, and made a very user friendly Intermission guide for Luminous Arc 2, helping thousands of players play the game in two different styles. In 2010 I overcame my painful right wrist to create a very usable and the best ROM for the Palm Treo 750, extending it's life for another 2 years and helping hundreds keep using their phone. Now, in 2012, my 1TB hdd motivated me to do something instead of moping it out, and if my time with my phone is short, why not let it go with a bang. A beta tester, a fansub translator, a GameFAQs writer, a ROM chef, and perhaps now an Android developer. I did think at one point how interesting it would be to try and do different things in different fields, and while some of them are simple things anyone could do, you know what I saw in all that? It wasn't that I actually succeeded in those endeavors,

It was the hundreds and thousands of people I helped all those years. People who have come to enjoy my work, and even if all I ever earned out of all that was a free copy of the game I was testing and just 1 donation from my ROM cooking, what mattered most to me was that:

I felt alive and happy. And I'll continue doing what makes me alive and happy and helping others, instead of letting my health tire me down or my failing technology hinder my progress. No matter how bad it is not having my 1TB, I still think it pales in comparison to perhaps the most fearful moment in my life earlier this year, when I nearly lost my left eye. Now that scared me.

2 comments:

I've become rather paranoid since then. Anything that has to do with modding, I wear my glasses if I'm already not wearing them. I've come to realize that no matter how difficult it is, my glasses can be replaced, but not my eye.